


Family Treasure

by morganoconner



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are few things that Castiel can really do for Dean.  But this, this one small thing…this is something he can give him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Treasure

Castiel knows he shouldn’t do it, knows that there are rules in place for a reason, and that while this technically won’t actually affect the past, it is still forbidden. But he’s already cut off from Heaven, and with his powers growing weaker by the day, it won’t be long before this is beyond his capability.

He believes that, if he were to ask her directly, Mary would want him to do this.

The day she married John Winchester was the day Mary Campbell gave up the life she’d always known. That was the day she forever gave up hunting, and never looked back. So that is the day he travels to.

He stays hidden, watches the proceedings with something that almost resembles a smile. This is the woman who will bring Dean into the world, this is the woman responsible for everything he has grown to cherish. Here, in this time, she is happy, and he is happy for her.

If nothing else had yet proven to him that he was falling from grace, that would be enough.

He continues to watch silently as the sky slowly darkens toward twilight. He could have come and gone already in the blink of an eye, but there is a part of him that hopes that someday, he can share this memory with Dean. Dean…or, really, both of the Winchester brothers deserve to know a small chapter in the short period of time their parents were truly happy.

There is a moment, toward the end of the evening, that he is startled to discover Mary looking at him. She never says a word, there is only a single glance, a furrowed brow, and then she turns back to her new husband and does not look at him again. But it is enough for him to take as his cue to finish what he came here to do, and he leaves with the soft sound of wing beats, reappearing in the home she and John have made for themselves.

The object he’s looking for has been placed with care in a carved wooden box in a small, hidden nook, in the back of the master bedroom’s closet. He takes it out gently, examines it by the moonlight coming in through the open curtains.

The bracelet, more specifically the charms it carries, has been passed down through the Campbell family for many years, and it is the only heirloom the Winchester brothers could ever have had. If John had known about it. If Mary hadn’t hidden it so well. If twenty-six years ago, it hadn’t been lost in a demonic blaze. There are few things that Castiel can fix for Dean, fewer still that wouldn’t severely alter the man he has become. But this, this one small thing…this is something he can give him.

He clutches the bracelet tightly in his fist, uses what’s left of his dwindling power to hurtle himself back to 2010. He is tired and aching when he lands in the Winchester’s motel room, and they are sound asleep on their respective beds, looking careworn and exhausted in ways even he cannot yet fully understand.

He moves through the room silently to Dean’s bedside, places the bracelet on the table beside him. Dean will see it when he awakes, will know it instantly. Castiel doubts he’ll question how it arrived here, and he wonders what Dean will think of the angel doing this for him, if he’ll ever acknowledge it, or simply let it sit between them, unspoken as so many other things are. He finds he does not care, because he knows what it will mean to the hunter to have it regardless.

He brushes gentle fingers over Dean’s cheek, and then leaves as silently as he came.

Dean shifts in his sleep, a small smile on his face that wasn’t there a moment ago, his dreams suddenly lighter then they’ve been in months.


End file.
